Seek the Kingdom of God First: 14:13-23

Recap and Background

Welcome to Episode 7 in Series 4, as we continue to discuss Paul’s teaching about healthy, strong church communities, which is the major theme of this fourth part of the book of Romans between chapter 12 and the end, chapter 16. Maybe you have been with me as we have been going through the whole book of Romans, in which case you will be aware that Paul always had in his mind a concern for the practical life of the church in Rome but he spent much of the early part of the letter outlining his gospel in Series 1, in Series 2, helping them to be equipped to have the resources to live the Christian life effectively and then in Series 3 he explains the place of the Jews in the work of God now that the new covenant had come. He put all these things in place before focusing his mind on the very practical issues that the church faced: how to deal with opposition, people who oppose them, which was certainly the case in Rome; how to deal with the governing authorities, the civil power in Rome which was often suspicious of the Christians. The Christians had no legal standing, no legal recognition as a religion at that time.

In the last episode, we came to an important question which is different behaviour patterns of Christians in local churches. Paul pointed out that in Rome, as in other churches that he planted, people had different opinions about certain aspects of how you live your life: things like food, religious ceremonies and holy days, and special religious events. These were the two examples that Paul gave which were issues for the church in Rome. He was concerned that these secondary issues should not become points of division where people couldn’t get on with each other and decided to meet separately. Paul was always concerned to bring the church together as a corporate community representing different ethnic and social groups. He believed that the gospel was inclusive of everyone; that it gave a place for men and women alongside each other, for the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the Jew and the Gentile – all gathered together in one community. That is easy to say but it is very difficult to achieve in practice. Paul believed that the church would have most impact on its community when people could come into churches and see all sorts of different people worshipping God together and honouring Jesus Christ as their Lord.

He felt that that would lead to great advance of the Kingdom of God and the preaching of the gospel.

That is what happened in some places; for example in Ephesus the church grew very fast and many different types of people from the region gathered together fairly easily in the church community. But sometimes it was difficult. In Rome there were particular difficulties that Paul had been told about that were faced by the Christians there and these difficulties related in part to how the church was founded. It started as a Jewish group after the Day of Pentecost and we understand that Gentiles joined the church, but then the Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome. So the Christian Jews had to leave the city because they were blamed for rioting. The Jewish community was taken out, leaving the church almost entirely Gentile. About five or six years later, the Jews were allowed to return. The church kept changing in its composition, people coming and going. This created a sense of instability in the membership of the church and how different groups related to each other. This underlies some of the things that Paul is concerned about in these chapters and particularly in chapters 14 and 15, where he deals with a number of specific issues.

Last time he dealt with two issues: food and religious festivals - particularly the Sabbath day. In this episode, he comes back again to the topic of food. When we think about it, food is a tremendously important issue for all of us. Our culture is closely connected with food and with patterns of hospitality and being together in community.

Different Customs

“Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. I’m convinced being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you’re no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.”

Romans 14:13-18, NIV

We are back to the subject of food, hospitality and eating together. If you travel from place to place or from country to country, one of the first things you notice is the difference in what people eat and how they eat it together.

Many years ago when visiting South Korea, I remember arriving in the country to be greeted by my hosts who were members of a local church. It was late at night but before we went to bed, we went to the restaurant to eat. I was tired after a long journey, and the first thing that surprised me in this restaurant was that we were sitting or kneeling on the ground, something I wasn’t used to. Secondly as I looked at the food around me, at least half the things that were being offered in this wonderful feast were things I didn’t even know what they were. Immediately, even though I had moved from one western country, the United Kingdom, to another western country situated in Asia, there was a big difference in food and in hospitality. It was important for me to start eating things that I had never eaten before, to engage with them, because food connects people together in a remarkably powerful way. When we go from one country to another, one culture to another, the issue of food is very important and people can be easily offended if visitors do not receive the food that they are being offered in the form of hospitality.

We know this in modern culture as we move between Africa and Europe, between Asia and the Americas; we see all sorts of differences in what we eat and how we eat it together. If this is our experience in the modern world, it was even more so in the ancient world. A particular area of extreme sensitivity and difficulty in the Early Church was the Jewish background of the Jewish believers in the church because they had grown up, before they became Christians, with rules and regulations which prevented them eating a lot of foods that were offered in the marketplaces in the Roman and Greek cities where they lived. They were forbidden from eating pork, shellfish, certain birds and flying insects. These were forbidden in the Old Testament. It was difficult for a Jewish believer in the Messiah to change his or her habits and suddenly think it is okay to eat pork or shellfish or certain forbidden birds or flying insects. In fact not only were there some foods that were forbidden for them to eat, but also before they became Christians these Jews would have been used to never eating with Gentiles at the same table. If they were in business together, they would eat separately; they would withdraw to eat on their own to maintain ritual cleanliness and not to be contaminated by the food that their friends were eating. They would have a separate social life centred around their synagogues where not only did they worship on the Saturday, or the Sabbath, but there were social events, meals, charity events, hospitality events for visiting Jews who came in from other places. It was the community centre, and it was a Jewish environment based on food laws which prevented them from eating many popular foods in the marketplace.

This is what is in Paul’s mind in the background when he knows that some of the Jewish Christians who are in this church have got all this in their past experience. It was such a powerful experience that even Peter the Apostle, as described in Galatians 2, realized that he could eat anything and he could socialize with the Gentiles; he knew it in his mind and practiced it generally speaking. But he changed his practice when some strict Jews came from Jerusalem to where he was staying at the time. They saw him meeting with Gentiles and he withdrew and he said that he would eat with the Jews on their own, so that there wasn’t an argument about it. It was a very sensitive issue amongst the Jewish people, and that is why Paul has to deal with this issue so carefully here.

We know that Jesus indicated that these regulations were coming to an end. In Mark 7:19, he declared all food to be clean. The Old Testament law was going to become obsolete. It was no longer going to be the regulation of the Church. But it was a struggle for those Jews to escape from that traditional way of thinking. We find another example of this in the book of Acts in chapter 10, when Peter is travelling around in Judea and he is down on the coastline staying in a town called Joppa. He has been developing churches amongst Jewish communities in Judea and focusing on converting the Jews to Christianity. That has been a full-time occupation for him. Then it says in Acts 10 that something very remarkable and spiritual happened to him. God began to speak to him about the Gentile people who he didn’t really associate with at the time. In Acts 10:11, we find that he had a vision. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet was being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him “Get up Peter, kill and eat.” This vision was about food that he knew to be unclean in the Old Testament. “Surely not Lord?” Peter replied “I’ve never eaten anything impure or unclean.” The voice spoke to him a second time “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” God used this vision about food to show Peter that he needed to open his heart up to the Gentile people. He was socially separate from them and food was one of the barriers that separated him from them. God was showing him that he needed to step over that barrier and form relationships with Gentiles. Immediately afterwards, he was invited to the home of a Gentile, a Roman soldier called Cornelius. He preached the gospel there. Cornelius and his family were saved. This was the beginning of an amazing process of Gentile conversion but the notable thing is, food is the symbol in this vision. The food laws captured the imagination of the Jewish people.

Paul had thought a lot about this issue and he had a very clear conclusion. He knew what he thought in Romans 14:14.

“I am convinced being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself.”

Romans 14:14, NIV

He, Paul, had broken free from this tradition and this restriction in his life but he still needed to talk further to the Romans about food restrictions and say that some of the Jewish people will still hold on to restrictions; you have to be patient with them and allow them to have their restrictions. They will eat slightly differently for the current time because they are still thinking in the way of the old covenant and their cultural heritage.

Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit

Paul goes on to summarize everything he said about this with a wonderful statement in verse 17.

“For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

Romans 14:17, NIV

His conclusion is: food is a secondary issue. Let us not divide about our different preferences for food. We have significant cultural differences in the church. We are not going to be able to bring them all together; we have to allow things to go at their own speed. People will go with their preferences and their culture and they are free to do that. The Kingdom of God does not depend on what we think about food and drink; the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking. Secondary issues must remain secondary in the Church. This is a great lesson for us; it is tremendously easy to get very agitated and angry about some cultural practice in your church that is a secondary issue. People have different opinions about different things but it is not a primary issue.

A good example of that is the style of music. It is amazing to me in every church I have ever been in, or visited, there will always be very significant differences of opinion about the style of music that should be adopted in that church. It is almost a universal rule wherever I have been that people will disagree about this. They have very strong preferences. When you dig down and work out what this preference is you find it is about their age, the musical background they have, their heritage in church life and their engagement with music of different generations of writing, which culture or country they come from, and which language they prefer to sing in - all sorts of different things affect that opinion. But it is a secondary issue.

Food is a secondary issue, it cannot be at the front. What matters most? Three things, says Paul, ‘righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit’. This isn’t just a phrase; this refers to three priorities.

Number one, ‘righteousness’ - being right with God. Righteousness refers to our relationship with God, the most important thing in the Kingdom of God is not food and drink; it is being in the right relationship with God - being saved, walking with him correctly and uprightly day by day.

‘Peace’ - the primary reference there when he uses the word peace is social harmony. The most important thing is worshipping God, the second most important thing is seeking to live in a harmonious relationship with the people in your church community, the very thing that Paul has been talking about.

The third most important thing is ‘joy’ - having a joyful attitude to life and to God’s grace to you. That puts everything in perspective. What a wonderful verse: a verse worth committing to memory.

Harmony

“Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It’s better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall. So whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.”

Romans 14:19-23, NIV

We need to make every effort to keep harmonious relationships with fellow believers.

Reflections

Some final reflections as we come to the end of chapter 14. We need to put the issue of food and drink in its rightful place. Some who are viewing this video will be aware that in certain cultures there are some very sensitive issues around food that we do need to respect. If you are living in a community where there are Muslim communities, you will be aware that the issue of not eating pork, is very important to them that could lead us to be very sensitive and careful in that issue. Those of you who might live in India will be aware of the Hindu respect for cattle, which will affect your way of thinking about eating. There are different issues in different cultures, but within the Christian community it should not be a matter of argument;

The same applies concerning the issue of alcohol which is mentioned in verse 21, where Paul says if it causes offense or difficulty to drink alcohol, the best policy is not to drink alcohol at all in that Christian community context. There will be many other issues that might come to your mind that are perhaps even more important in your culture than the ones that Paul has mentioned here. So think what those issues are and apply Paul’s principles. Secondary issues should not become primary issues. We should be very careful not to divide from other Christians about purely cultural issues because the gospel is more important than those things.

Paul’s summary in verse 17 is a wonderful way for us to end this episode where he says,

“The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

I look forward to seeing you as you join us hopefully with the next episode.